The Construction of the Past: Towards a Theory for Knowing the Past

Abstract

This paper presents Constructed Past Theory, an epistemological theory about how we come to know things that happened or existed in the past. The theory is expounded both in text and in a formal model comprising UML class diagrams. The ideas presented here have been developed in a half century of experience as a practitioner in the management of information and automated systems in the US government and as a researcher in several collaborations, notably the four international and multidisciplinary InterPARES projects. This work is part of a broader initiative, providing a conceptual framework for reformulating the concepts and theories of archival science in order to enable a new discipline whose assertions are empirically and, wherever possible, quantitatively testable. The new discipline, called archival engineering, is intended to provide an appropriate, coherent foundation for the development of systems and applications for managing, preserving and providing access to digital information, development which is necessitated by the exponential growth and explosive diversification of data recorded in digital form and the use of digital data in an ever increasing variety of domains. Both the text and model are an initial exposition of the theory that both requires and invites further development.

Ontology-Mediated Historical Data Modeling: Theoretical and Practical Tools for an Integrated Construction of the Past

“…Thibodeau's Constructed Past Theory (CPT) [1] has shed new light in the conceptualization of past construction, which is not new particularly in archaeological theory, where material vestiges never speak by themselves, but it is the archaeologist that must give them their significance [4,5]. Figure 1 provides a summary synthesis of CPT, wherein the Constructed Past is the final product of a process in which a Target Past evolves during the In-Progress Construction process according to the Intentional Domain.…”

“…Thus, Action is an Event in which human beings have an active role as participants. [1] expressed as a UML diagram. Highlighted classes in purple and green are those related to our concepts of 'Units of Topography' and 'Actors', respectively, as further developed in our research domain.…”

“…Some of them are still highly theoretical [11] or archaeology-based [12], and, frequently, specific research about ontology-based data management only addresses historical Figure 1. Summary view of Constructed Past Theory (CPT) according to K. Thibodeau [1] expressed as a UML diagram. Highlighted classes in purple and green are those related to our concepts of 'Units of Topography' and 'Actors', respectively, as further developed in our research domain.…”

“…This study addresses some problems and tested solutions-that historians experience when approaching knowledge of the past. According to the principles of constructed past theory, published recently [1], we aim to introduce and discuss the validity of our information system to gather and exploit historical data, and the underpinning concepts of our methodological approach. Our main goal is to strengthen the chances of building the historical discourse on a scientific basis, taking into account the risks of bias and ideological implication concomitant to Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and describing our methodology as a measure to mitigate risks.…”

“…According to the main research developed in recent years and summarized in the following section, our main goal within this paper is to propose a specific ontology-mediated data modeling and a research information system (RIS) built accordingly. Regardless of the origin or nature of information sources susceptible of being considered as a vestige or a reflection [1] (p. 14) of the past, it is possible to exploit them within a shared code, and so we aim at offering our conceptual proposal and some examples of successful application. One of these examples, is the successful implementation of an Archaeological application of the Research Information System (ARIS), called SigArq.…”